Notes On Vice Presidential Qualifications, Followed By Notes On Governor Palin's Republican National Convention Speech

NOTES ON VICE PRESIDENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS

First of all, here is a slightly-revamped version of the comments I wrote today on my friend Anoka Flash's "Centrisity" site (http://centrisity.blogspot.com/):

I know I said that John McCain had to shake things up by adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to the ticket, but I was surprised to discover just yesterday that she has traveled outside of the U.S. and Canada exactly once in her life (on her relatively recent trip to Kuwait in order to visit U.S. troops from Alaska).

I have no problems whatsoever with anyone who hasn't traveled extensively outside of the U.S. and Canada, except when it comes to the national chief executive team. As someone who has traveled--and, as importantly, lived and worked and paid taxes--extensively abroad, it is completely unacceptable to me that in the 21st century we would be willing to put in the White House, in either the presidential or vice presidential office, someone who has shown little or no appetite for learning first-hand what much of the rest of the world is like.

It is essential that in this international era we have a leadership team that has spent extensive time abroad, in whatever capacity they've done it. (Both Senators Obama and Biden have spent extensive time abroad, albeit in different capacities.) Anyone who thinks this is not essential does not understand that only a savvy understanding of the nuances of various world cultures--which need to be learned first-hand and over time--will allow the United States to position itself effectively in order to retain its status as the world's democratic leader in our current, very small world.

I genuinely admire a number of things about Governor Palin--including her wit, tenacity, and very-Alaskan outdoors pursuits. But it's 2008, and the folks on the major party presidential tickets need to know how their country works in the context of the wider world.

It's therefore the case that someone ought to tell the Republicans presently engaged in remarkably consistent, screaming chants of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" this week in the Xcel Center that if they really cared about the future of American democracy, they should toss some of the repetitive, juvenile, and increasingly embarrassing jingoism aside for a little real-world realism. Only that will allow the U.S. to consistently retain much of its massive influence in the world, and to do so in pragmatic ways. What I see coming out of the Xcel this week amounts to little more than simplistic, self-aggrandizing sloganeering unfit for mature, proactive minds.

But that, I'm sure I'll be told, makes me "elitist." What a sad, sad situation....

--Hasslington

NOTES ON GOVERNOR PALIN'S REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION SPEECH

Now, the above section notwithstanding, this evening Governor Palin delivered an admittedly appealing and generally confident convention speech that was nonetheless a bit overly condescending in tone for my taste, given that she was basically introducing herself to the American people. (Her police-escorted caravan passed by Mrs. Hasslington and I as we exited our Saint Paul dinner spot of choice this evening, about an hour and a half prior to her speech.) What follows is a slight re-working of the notes I jotted-down regarding each section of the speech as she delivered it:

1.) She began her speech by introducing what seemed like at least half of her extended family, at considerable length.

2.) She said a few feel-good (if generic) words about small town America.

3.) She made a few "hockey mom" (for areas where ice hockey is not played, read "soccer mom") quips, one of which was admittedly quite funny.

4.) She recirculated (already?!?) back to small town America, about which she offered a few more generalized comments.

5.) She totally misrepresented Senator Obama's "bitter" comment regarding the experiences of some small town people, but such a situation is to be expected in a national political convention setting.

6.) She made a few passing jabs at Senator Obama's former community organizer job; again, that's fair game in a political convention scenario.

7.) She tauted her lack of national political experience as a positive aspect, which is fine but contradictory after Rudy Giuliani earlier criticized Senator Obama for what he viewed as the Democratic nominee's lack of national political experience.

8.) She discussed her efforts at Alaskan ethics reform, though she rather oddly referred to ethics violations as "self-dealing." This section of the speech started well, with her discussion of how she sold what she saw as a superfluous state airplane on e-bay, but then it slid into piffle-making with a joke about how her kids missed the personal chef that she also jettisoned, which was so feather-light and insubstantial that I admit I zoned-out for the next few minutes.

9.) She reminded us that she opposed the "bridge to nowhere," while neglecting to mention that she initially supported it; this is also par for the course in a national convention setting. (I feel as though I need to take a trip to Alaska to see this nationally famous bridge, given its astonishingly consistent level of celebrity staying power.)

10.) Regarding oil, she correctly noted that the United States cannot be "at the mercy of foreign" oil distributors. (Though she did fine syntactically, her voice was less confident in this short section of the speech than elsewhere, perhaps because it has been revealed that she has been outside of the U.S. and Canada once in her life, which I find alarming in a vice presidential running mate, male or female, young or old.)

11.) She spoke generically and, it seems, simply out of obligation about environmentally-friendly, renewable sources of energy. (This section of the speech lasted all of thirty or forty seconds; make of that what you will.)

12.) She admittedly landed a couple of solid political punches on Senator Obama, but immediately followed this with a cheap joke about the columns used at the Democratic National Convention, which had the effect of taking a lot of the starch out of those punches.

13.) She basically, if indirectly, sanctioned torture, or at least muddied the waters insofar as the "legal rights" of detainees are concerned by sarcastically criticizing Senator Obama's apparent wish "to read [terrorists] their rights."

14.) She ripped into Senator Obama's tax strategies. Listening to her talk about this issue, you'd think the U.S. would be headed immediately and quickly toward a state of total economic communism should Senator Obama be our next president. This suggestion required the use of a hell of a lot of hyperbole, but, again, that's to be expected at a national political convention. (She also managed to shove the names of no less than ten swings states into the mix at this point, if in a rather slapdash and inelegant manner.)

15.) She suggested that Senator Obama believes in "change to promote [his] career," whereas Senator McCain believes in a "career that promotes change." This shot certainly scored, though it could have scored to a greater extent if it was followed by focused and pointed material; instead, the pages of the speech seemed to lose a bit of focus and waft away at this point.

16.) These sort of speeches usually if not always include an awkward transition or two, and some of them include an awkward turn of phrase or two. This one certainly contained an awfully awkward turn of phrase, in the form of a sort-of metaphor designed to suggest that Senator McCain is a maverick politician, which was delivered at this point and was as follows: "Our nominee doesn't run with the Washington herd." Let's just move on.

17.) She delivered a few more jokes about "community organizers," at which point I pondered that term in the context of politics, which led me to the conclusion that, to a certain extent, politicians--Democrats and Republicans, legislators and chief executives--are basically, well, community organizers....

18.) She spoke about Senator McCain's prisoner of war experience and how it relates to the office of the presidency. This is certainly legitimate material, though the crowd seemed a bit confused with some of the more oddly-phrased connections between the two. It's almost as though this section was pasted into the speech at the last minute.

19.) She delivered a few surprisingly perfunctory concluding words, which might be further evidence that the last two sections of the speech were tacked-on somewhat haphazardly at the eleventh hour.